I think it's just part of our society's bias in favor of motor vehicles, to assume that any damage with a vehicle involved is an "accident".

I have been on a bicycle when someone deliberately tried to run me off the road for "fun".

The only criminal case ever in the whole state of Texas, where it was actually assumed that a driver deliberately tried to run a bicyclist off the road, and it was no "accident", was when some guy happened to do it to Lance Armstrong. In every other case, it was legally assumed to be an accident.